Letter #15 - 12/25/13

We had the great treat of speaking with Alli today (Christmas Day) over Skype for 130 minutes!!  She is doing great and we loved being able to see her live and in person.  Below are a couple of short videos from her today.  The first video is Alli wishing you all a Merry Christmas.  The second is Alli doing a routine "train" contact in Italian.  We also threw in a family picture of the Yosts' crowded around the computer - what was for all of us our "best Christmas present, by far."

 

Letter #14 - 12/18/13

Buon Natale (Merry Christmas)!

So this week was crazy. Literally. Haha so much has happened. But we are doing so good! Next week is Christmas? What? So weird, haha. But we are definitely in the Christmas Spirit listening to "Oh Holy Night" by Glee on repeat whenever we are home. It’s our favorite, haha.

We are going to Firenze for Christmas! We don’t really have a member’s house to go to for Christmas since we have like 15 members and they all live at least a train ride and then usually an additional car ride away from the station and apparently the trains don’t run as often on Christmas, so we are going to a member’s house in Florence with another set of sisters to Skype! We can only Skpye for 40 minutes!  I will just call you when we get on – I will use Dad’s account. We are so excited! You better be too ;) haha.

Funny story for the week, apparently I laugh in my sleep sometimes? Haha. Sorella Lopez said that the other night I laughed in the middle of the night in my sleep. She said it was funny and creepy all at the same time. The things you learn about yourself on a mission right? Haha.

I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU GOT RID OF THE BEAST (our old suburban with 200,000 miles on it). The burb is really gone? Forever? Good thing I said goodbye in the parking garage at the airport, haha. Do you like the new car mom? All the cars here are tiny little Fiats. I can’t even remember what it’s like to not have to bend to get into a car anymore, haha classic.

Our investigators are still doing well and we just love them so much. They are so strong and they know it’s all true. So hopefully we will be having three baptisms pretty soon!

It’s Christmas season and it is so important to remember why we celebrate this time of year. We are so blessed to be a part of this Gospel, it truly does bring happiness. I have already seen that so much here. Remember Christ especially this time of year! He is the reason for the season :) Love you all and I’m so excited to SEE YOU next week! Thanks for all the love and prayers!

Ti voglio tanto bene!

Sorella Alli

 

Letter #13 - 12/11/13

Ciao Famiglia!

 

How is everything back home? This week has been really good! Our investigators are amazing and are so prepared for the gospel. It has been so cool to watch them gain a testimony for themselves. We love them so much!

So yesterday we had Zone Conference! It was really fun and President and Sister Dibb put on a little Christmas party for us and it was really, really fun :) They got us all aprons with the mission logo sewn on them! They are really cute and we had lunch prepared by one of the Italian senior missionary couples and it was SO GOOD. I didn’t see anyone from the MTC at zone conference as we all got super spread out in the mission – I am the only one in this zone. 

We are not sure what we are doing for Christmas, I don’t think there will be a branch party or anything and we already had our zone conference, which was a Christmas party.  It was really, really fun! Maybe we will do something with the other sorelle in Firenze. The computer won’t let me load any pictures today so I will send more next week! :) You will be so proud mom, haha we tried so hard but the computer wouldn’t cooperate. Italian is hard but I am trying my best! I am sure between Sister Lopez and the Zone Leaders we will figure out how to Skype on Christmas. 

Our zone leaders are actually the elders that were assigned to our branch and they are really great! I think they go to Milan once a month for consiglio, but I’m not sure if they ever have to go more than that.  They have a car, but I never want to drive over here – ever! It would be so scary because Italian drivers are crazy.

I got all the packages you sent Mom! Thank you sooooo much! You seriously spoiled me. Tell Abbi and Anna nice job wrapping, haha. But really thank you so much! I am so lucky and I am excited to open them on Christmas! :) And tell everyone thanks that wrote me a letter for the advent calendar! Those mean so much to me and I love reading one each day. Thanks so much Mom and Dad! So we made our Christmas tree and we are so proud of it, haha. We put a green blanket over our ladder and then made ornaments out of paper and bought some Christmas lights and wrapped them around it and then put a star we made out of cardboard at the top. It is really legit. Plus we have the Christmas tree in a box you sent nicely situated on our dinner table.  We have two trees!!

Even though it is cold old, we are staying warm! It actually gets really, really foggy here. Fog in Italian is nebbia, but yeah it gets super, super foggy and the train stations look really creepy – kind of like out of a Harry Potter book, haha. It’s really cool. Our new apartment is really nice and we stay really warm and my coat is perfect outside. I always wear the running tights from like freshman year track under my skirt haha, cute right?

Thanks for all your prayers for us and our investigators! Everything is going well here and we are so grateful for this time of year especially because people really do turn more to Christ at this time. Thanks for everything you do for me; I am literally the most spoiled missionary ever. I am glad Will had a good birthday! Thanks for all the pictures! :) I love you!

Have a great week and I will talk to you next week!

Love, Sorella Alli

A Thanksgiving Dinner I will never forget!

Letter #12 - 12/4/13

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Hi family! How is everyone?! Did you have a great Thanksgiving? We celebrated Thanksgiving in true missionary style, we ate pizza and watched the district in our sweats - haha so funny. Sounds like it was so fun having Uncle Jim and Aunt Tonia and everyone there! Oh and Kaila had her baby?! He is so cute!!! I can't wait to meet him someday :) haha - tell her and Joey congrats!

This week was really good, we had our 4 investigators in church on Sunday and they all loved it! We have a new investigator that is a friend of theirs and she is 12 years old and seriously soooo cute - haha -  She is HILARIOUS - haha. She is trying to learn English and I am terrible at Italian so we help each other out and are pretty much best friends, its great, haha, she is so adorable and she LOVED church. We went to visit her and our other investigators on Sunday night - it's a mom and her daughter and then their two friends, one of which is this 12 year old girl. They are all friends so they all go over to the mom and her daughters house all the time. And so the litDle 12 year old girl comes in the room while we are having the lesson with the daughter and sits down and is like "okay, so if I want to get baptized, what do we need to do?" hahaha and we are like "well first we need to talk to your mom..." and she is like" oh no, my mom will be fine -  don't worry, but what do we need to do?" haha! So we told her we will need to meet a few times each week and teach her and so she takes my planner and writes out her schedule for me. haha She has dance on Mondays and then school until 3 every day and then she is free. haha It was so funny, Sorella Lopez and I were laughing so hard.

I can't wait to Skype with you on Christmas - we are so excited!!  I think it will be the best Christmas present ever.  Make sure Abbi notices the One Direction singing thing hanging on our funny wall from the card she sent me - haha, it still sings and lights up. Thank you for the great letters you write me and all the cards.  I love reading about dad's mission stories and Mom, you are the best at all the details from home.  I also like that you each send me a quote every week.  I print out your emails, and read them over and over again.

We moved apartments last week and our new apartment is so cute - it is a really nice apartment! Our old one was really nice too, but this one is a lot cuter and we even stay warm at night now - haha, and yeah I like having my own pillow from home - I couldn't sleep without it, and my sheets are perfect. My new apartment is great - it even has its own mailbox so you can send my letters direct to me.

We decorated the walls in our new apartment and on one wall we have a sign that says "Enjoy the Sacrifice" and we write inspirational quotes and miracles on it. Then we have another wall where we write all our funny quotes and stories; it's great. On our funny wall we have a picture of everyone coming out of the Conference Center after General Conference and then we have a sign that says "never forget Utah still exists - you are never alone," haha because no one ever knows who we are here, very rarely have people even heard of "Mormons." So sometimes we just have to remind ourselves that we aren't alone and that there are members of the church all over the world. We are turning our ladder into a Christmas tree this week so get excited for pictures of that, haha - but I love and miss you so much! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and that Will has a great birthday today!! :) Love you!

Sorella Alli

 My leather-bound scriptures

 

 Italian sunset from our balcony

 

 This is really good

 

 Our new apartment

 

Our quote wall

 

 We love to decorate

 

 Our beds

 

This is really nice

I love my trainer & McDonalds